Eternity
by Wingleader Sora Jade
Summary: Companion fic to "Do You Even Care?" - Bakura rants on life, love, and eternity. And the pharaoh. Obviously. (Set to "Raven in the Snow", by Bill Miller.)


Eternity 

by WSJ 

Inspired by a combination of the latest chapter of Skyla Doragono's _Dawn of Fate_, the last act of the play _Our Town_, and the fact that I've had less than 6 hours of sleep since Friday morning, and it's now almost midnight on Sunday. ^^ And it's spring break!! YAY!!! 

This is also a companion fic to _Do You Even Care?_. You've heard Ryou ranting, now it's Yami Bakura's turn... 

Note: _yadonushi_ means 'king's property', and is Yami Bakura's name for Ryou (well, one of them. ^^;;) 

Disclaimer: I don't own any of them. The song is _Raven in the Snow_, by Bill Miller. If _Somebody's Baby_ is the perfect Ryou song, than _Raven in the Snow_ is perfect for Bakura. ^^\\// Ya'll have fun and review now, ya' hear? 

()()()()() 

Hmph. Try and find me all you want, it's impossible to see me when I don't want to be seen. Despite white hair and pale skin, I can sink into shadows at will. Do you know how useful that's been, over all these long years? 

So many... long years... 

You're almost beneath me now, I could roll out of this tree and land on top of you, if I wanted. But I won't. Not tonight. It goes against everything I am, not to humiliate you when I have the chance, but I'll let you have your peace, for tonight. 

Just tonight. 

What's posessed you? Looking down on you like this, you seem half-mad. Looking for me... Why? Why do you want to find me so desperately? So you can mock me, ridicule me on this of all nights? Have you no sense of right and wrong? 

Can't you honor those long dead, on this of all nights? 

_With the wings of sorrow, I have taken flight_

Heh, you're sitting down at the base of my tree. Still don't know I'm up here? You're less perseptive than I thought, you fool. You've known me long enough, you should know by now that whenever you want to find me, just look up. Rooftops, trees, windowsills, I haunt them all. 

Why, you want to know? There's many reasons. When I'm up, I can, for once, look down. Long ago, I grew up with my nose always in the dust, being ground down by everyone and everything. But when I'm up a tree, I can look down on the world. 

I can even look down on you. 

Then again, I'm _always_ looking down on you, even when we're both on the ground. 

Ironic, isn't it? 

_Cloaked in the darkness like a thief in the night_

The stars... The stars are another reason I love to be upward off the streets. The stars have always been my friends, even if they are so much different here than they were in Egypt. Stars have guided me on many a desert journey, but that's not the only reason... 

Do you know how magnificint it is, on a night in the Sahara when it's gotten so cold that the sand is snapping with frost, to look up and see a huge dome of nothing but black eternity and a million diamonds of light? 

Stars were always my favorite treasure, more than gold or silver or jewels. 

Stars are beautiful. 

And no one can ever take stars away from you. 

I have to see them tonight, even if they are so much different. Tonight, I have to see stars. 

I remember... 

They were all I could see as I lay on my back in the sand hidden between two walls, staring up at the night and listening to my people screaming. 

I remember there were stars... 

_I have watched the farmer planting in his field   
And known that what he sows, is there for me to steal._

So many ages. So much time has gone by... I'm so tired of being stuck in this stupid mortal plane! Don't you ever think this way too? Don't you ever wish you could just move on, go on, forget all the pain that's come before... 

All the pain... 

Please, I just want peace... 

But we never get peace, you and I, do we? Why did Fortune and Fate choose us as their petty pretty play things? Are we really doomed to wander forever from host to host, watching them all die, watching the world change, watching all we love leave us behind? 

Don't you ever wish for death? 

_Real_ death? 

_I take what I need, never more, never more_

Foolish mortals... Why can't they see? They fear death so much. They can't see what a beautiful blessing death really is. Life is overrated. 

Especially when you've lived as many as we have. 

And isn't it ironic, the man who was a god, who was expected to have eternal life, was granted it, and now I'd bet all the gold in Tutankhamen's tomb that he wishes he wasn't given that "gift". 

And a tomb robber, a man who would be thrown to the Nile crocodiles when life was done with him, he too was given this curse called "life". 

What did I do to deserve this? Living on forever and ever, wishing to see my loved ones again, my mother... My sister... And being cursed to remain forever tied to a white haired mouse. 

No crime deserved this punishment... 

_No_ crime deserved this curse... 

And yet you and I, opposite as can be, are stuck (as they say) in the same boat. 

Heh. It'd be humorous if it wasn't so sad. 

_In the art of survival, there's no rich, there's no poor_

What are you still doing here, sitting under my tree? Are you thinking of these things too? Somehow it's always the anneverseries that make us think of the past, isn't it? I remember last year, you got so excited about the feast days of Osiris, and tried to get your little hikari to celebrate them with you. 

It's not the same, is it? 

Without the scorching sand under your feet as you dance dances long forgotten, without the blazing sun on your back as you feast on the finest hippopotamus, without the Nile rushing by as you laughed with your lover... it's just not the same. 

I know what you're thinking. I had days of fun too. I wasn't robbing tombs _all_ the time. The feast days were always the best. And pharaoh's birthday, because there was always plenty of good food to steal. Not to mention all the treasure. 

But it's not the same. That was all the past. 

Dead and gone, just as we should be... 

We should be... 

_Time passes by, kingdoms come and go   
I've seen it all, I'm a raven in the snow_

Wouldn't it be fitting, do you think, to die today? The day my people were slaughtered, melted into molten gold and hung around my neck? Yes, today would be a good day to die. 

But it can't be so. Stupid yadonushi, he still needs me, the little mouse. I'm not about to leave him. So many have left me behind. I know what it is to be alone, and I won't allow him to suffer that fate. 

You feel the same about your hikari, I know you do. I see it in your eyes every time you look at him. 

There are ways, you know, to unbind ourselves and move on. It's difficult, I've spent the last three thousand years finding it, but there is a way. 

But we won't do it. 

We're forever cursed in two ways. These golden baubles bind us to a mortal world we've come to hate, while the innocent little hikaris trap us mind and soul. 

And heart. 

_I have watched the seekers searching for their gold   
The rape of the land, generations unfold   
Nations of the world, their rise and their fall_

Yes, heart. You heard me right. 

No, I'm not going soft. Are you crazy? It's not that I _care_ for the stupid little mouse, it's just that he'd most likely get himself killed if I were to go. 

Besides... Losing half of yourself is something no one should ever have to go through... 

Maybe, maybe when Ryou grows old, when he dies... 

Maybe I can move on to paradise at last... 

Maybe... 

Aw hell, who'm I trying to kid? 

_I've watched it all, I'm a raven in the snow_

So it's going to be you and me for a long, long time, I guess. It seems to be our destiny to run into each other time and time again, life after life. There was that time when our stupid hosts got called away to Vietnam, and we ended up in the same platoon. 

And the time our hosts ended up being idiotic surfers in California. 

And the time our hosts were knights at the Round Table. Oh what a life that was-! 

A little strange, isn't it, that while we've both had many hosts over the years, many people who've put on our Items, it's only our current hosts that we call hikari? Maybe it's because these hosts are the gentlest, the kindest we've ever had. Some of our previous hosts were downright cruel to us. 

Do you remember? 

Of course you do. Good times, good times... Why are we always enemies? If... if I wasn't hell-bent on getting revenge for my people... If you somehow forgot what I did to your father... We could have been... 

Might have been... 

Maybe we would have been... 

No. Fate doesn't work that way. You and I will never be anything but enemies, bound to this world, bound to each other, bound to eternity in a kind of living hell. 

Just us. 

What a way to spend forever. 

_I have heard the crying, wailing in the wind   
Empty words and broken promises, time and time again_

It's getting late. Shouldn't you be running back to your little hikari before he gets too worried about you? Why are you still here, anyway? That's the one thing I haven't figured out. You're looking up, not at me, but at my stars. Do you see them as I do? 

Not just my treasures, not just my guides, my hope. Every star is someone I've seen die. They're all waiting on me. Most of them probably want my head, want me dead, but do you see that cluster of stars just over the eastern horizon? If you followed those stars, over land and sea, they'd lead you to Egypt. Those there, that seem to shine more brightly? That's my people. Kru-Elna in the sky. If I ever get up there, those are the ones that would welcome me with open arms. 

They'd probably be the only ones. 

But they make it all worth it. 

_Song of the sparrow, call of the crow   
Echo in the mountain and the valley's below_

Yes, you see them. You recognise that they point the way home, don't you? Home... Yes, home... 

You speak? "I'm sorry," you say. Sorry for what? My people? Kru-Elna? How can you ever say you're sorry when you still wear their flesh and bones around your neck?! 

You say it again, softer, "I'm sorry." That's all, just two words. 

Are you crying?! 

For Kru-Elna? 

Or for me? 

_The scarecrow and the hunter, can't keep me away   
The winter winds a blowin' couldn't lead me astray_

You stand to leave, and look right up at me, tucked among the folage of my tree. You bastard! You knew I was here the whole time, didn't you?! 

"Good night Bakura," you say quietly. "Sleep well, Bekhure." 

_You can separate the flock still my colors would show   
I will stand out, like a raven in the snow._

I can feel myself smiling into the darkness, just a little, and there are tears at the corners of my eyes. 

Maybe someday, if I can let go of hate... 

If you can let go of pride... 

If we can let go of eternity... 

Maybe someday we _will_ be friends. 

It's an intresting thought, at least. 

"Good night Yami. Rest well, Atemu." 

()()()()() 

WSJ: ^^ Reviews, please. 

God bless minna-san! 


End file.
